The catcher in the rye.

Written by J.D. Salinger this novel is a bit famous. It tends to be associated with the murder of John Lennon (Before killing John Lennon, Mark Chapman, who read and re-read the book many times - to the point of believing it was his own biography, asked Lennon to autograph his copy before gunning down the musician) However it's also a modern classic in it's own right. Holden Caulfield is the teenage protaganist and narrator of the diary-esque story. Set over two/three days in December in the early 1950s it's about Holden, who is expelled from his prestigious boarding school, Pencey Prep and told not to return after the Christmas break which starts on Wednesday. Instead of waiting till then he leaves early to stay in a hotel in New York for a couple of days by himself until his parents expect him home. But really as I sit here writing this review it's not so much what this story is about as WHO it's about. Holden Caulfield is this book, we get to see the thoughts and actions of a teenager, a depressed, troubled, contradictory, mind which we witness falling apart. It's not as you'd imagine, a chore to read this, parts of it are very funny, parts of it leap of the page and get lodged in your mind and it tells you something you don't know without ever feeling like it is. Lonely, ostracised teenagers should read this, parents of teenagers should read this, the popular kids should read it to, and if like me you're coming late to the party, you should read it too. It's an important book without feeling like it or feeling like it's trying to be, and to borrow a Caulfield phrase, it killed me. My last little point of recommendation, there's a line in the book about wishing you could phone up an author and just have a conversation with him cause you like how he writes. Salinger is that author, what a guy. 5 massive completely non phoney stars.